Citrix NetScaler VPX gets going on the Cisco 1110 Virtual Network Services platform

This week at Cisco live! in London, Citrix is demonstrating the Citrix NetScaler VPX virtual application delivery controller (vADC) on the Nexus 1110 Cloud Services Platform . NetScaler VPX is the industry-leading vADC and is further testimony to the expanding ecosystem for the Cisco Nexus 1000V virtual networking portfolio and the Cloud Network Services platform. The integrated Cisco-Citrix solution follows on the heels of last year’s agreement by the two companies that Cisco would reference sell the Citrix NetScaler portfolio, and Cisco’s demonstration of its Nexus 1000V virtual networking portfolio on Citrix XenServer.

The Nexus 1110 is the latest generation of appliances that started with the Nexus 1010. The Nexus 1110 helps customers that are virtualizing more of their application and security services and want to run them on a dedicated platform. For example, virtual firewalls, like our Virtual Security Gateway (VSG), complement physical firewall appliances to support virtual application deployments and VM mobility requirements. The Nexus 1110 appliance serves that need, running a range of virtual services on a platform that the networking and security teams can more directly control than the other application servers.

With Citrix NetScaler VPX integrated into the Nexus 1110 Cloud Services Platform, enterprise IT admins can scale-out deployments by enabling additional virtual NetScaler instances (VM’s) directly from the Nexus 1110. NetScaler VPX also provides feature and management consistency across physical and virtual ADC’s, as well as consistency across physical and virtual workloads that are being managed. The NetScaler portfolio includes two other physical appliances, MPX and SDX. The virtual VPX can also load balance across both physical and virtual servers, as well as multiple web servers, application servers and database servers.

Deploying NetScaler VPX on the Nexus 1110 also gives organizations a great deal of flexibility, since the virtual CPU’s in the Nexus 1110 can be allocated across multiple services and can be dedicated to NetScaler as needed. For example, for light loads, the Nexus 1110 could allocate 2 vCPUs to NetScaler, or for heavier loads, 8 vCPU’s could be allocated. NetScaler VPX is thus ideally suited for Service Providers who want to dynamically expand service capacity to their hosted private cloud clients.

The Nexus 1110 Cloud Services Platform is designed as a High Availability (HA) architecture and frequently deployed as a redundant pair. NetScaler VPX takes advantage of the HA features in the Nexus 1110 to better manage failover and availability as well.

With the announcement last year that Cisco would reference sell the Citrix NetScaler portfolio, including the VPX virtual module, this integration shows the increasing synergy with the Cisco virtual networking portfolio. In addition, it’s a great step toward expanding the available services for Cisco virtual networks and overlays.

If you are in London this week, please make sure to stop by the Citrix booth at Cisco live! at booth #G18 in our World of Solutions Expo. Also check out this blog from Citrix.

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